BSNL has launched an amazing service for all you fans of Indian music. It’s a part of BSNL’s new Hungama portal and it allows you to (finally!) download legal music in India at a decent price.

It’s not that this is the first legal music download service in India. Other broadband providers (like Tata Indicom) have had such services since long but they have all been expensive. And, who uses Tata Indicom anyway?

What we like

Rich library comprising of 30,000+ tracks. You can find a lot of new and old albums. They also have some collections from old singers like Kishore Kumar.

Only INR 149/month.

Includes regional, devotional albums as well (If you’re that type).

More than 1000 music videos.

Ability to preview songs (A bit useless since you have already paid for it)

What we don’t like

The library still isn’t rich enough for our taste. For instance, we couldn’t find classics like Taal and Dil Se. You’ll have to stick to ripping your Audio CDs.

No Western music.

Tied to BSNL Broadband.

Search sucks. Try searching for “Kishore Kumar” without quotes. The first result has neither Kishore nor Kumar. Now search “Kishore Kumar” with quotes. Better results but try pressing next.

Search "Kishore Kumar" without quotes

Search "Kishore Kumar" with quotes and press Next

DRM issues aren’t clearly mentioned. Will the music be tied to a single PC/MP3 player or to a person or to the family?

But all thing considered it’s a good service and more importantly a step in the right direction. For a country like ours, a subscription based service is the best way to counter music piracy.

I hope they will cleanup the bugs in time and add more music to the collection. And, if possible open it to non-BSNL users.